When the San Francisco 49ers entered last month’s NFL Draft, Mykel Williams was their top target. The Georgia edge rusher appeared to be a perfect pass-rushing partner for Nick Bosa and San Francisco reportedly tried to orchestrate a trade with the Carolina Panthers to make sure they secured their target.
The 49ers couldn’t make a deal but they took Williams anyway with the 11th overall pick. San Francisco was elated that the guy they wanted didn’t require additional draft capital to bring him to The Bay and Williams has already stood out during this weekend’s rookie minicamp according to NBC Sports Bay Area’s Jennifer Lee Chan.
“San Francisco’s first-round draft pick was eye-catching, not only in stature but in his ability to show quickness off the line in positional drills,” Chan wrote. “There was no full squad work, so the defensive line spent the entire session getting indoctrinated into the 49ers’ way by defensive line coach Kris Kocurek.”
Williams’s immediate impact should be taken with a grain of salt, but it’s still exciting to see a first-round pick stand out. But it also could spell trouble for current veterans on the team and put one player on thin ice when the team begins its offseason team activities later this month.
Robert Beal Jr. Could Be on Thin Ice with Mykel Williams’s Arrival to 49ers
The 49ers already took one step toward revamping their pass rushing group when they released former second-round pick Drake Jackson earlier this week. But while Jackson was the first casualty, San Francisco may have another lined up in third-year edge rusher Robert Beal Jr.
Beal is a fellow Georgia alum but hasn’t made the impact San Francisco was hoping for when they took him in the fifth-round of the 2023 draft. A hamstring injury put him on injured reserve for the start of his rookie season, and an ankle injury later on limited him to just four games with five total tackles and a sack in the regular season finale.
The former Bulldog stayed healthy in his sophomore season, but it didn’t make much of a difference. Beal recorded 17 total tackles in 14 games, but he didn’t have a tackle for a loss and recorded just two pressures on 57 pass-rushing snaps.
The 26-year-old didn’t have a large sample size with just 149 total snaps on the season. But it’s concerning he hasn’t seized a rotational role entering his third season. Sam Okuayinonu already surpassed him on the depth chart, making 35 tackles with six for loss and three sacks after coming over from the Tennessee Titans last season.
We knew that somebody was going to lose their job with Williams’s arrival. But in the case of Beal, it will be taken literally as he enters the offseason program.